Catatonia

“ Here spring the mighty fountains pure and strong,
That bear sweet change of breath to city throng,
Who, had the sea no breeze, would soon have died.
So though the sun shines not in such a blue,
Nor have the stars the meaning youth deviced,
The heavens are nigher, and a light shines through
The brightness that nor sun nor stars sufficed;
And on this lonely waste we find it true
Lost youth and love, not lost, are hid with Christ.
[Pg 10]
The Streets of Catania
(The streets of Catania are paved with blocks of the lava of Aetna.) ”

“ The onset of the catamenia in women takes place towards the end of the month; and on this account the wiseacres assert that the moon is feminine, because the discharge in women and the waning of the moon happen at one and the same time, and after the wane and the discharge both one and the other grow whole again. (In some women the catamenia occur regularly but sparsely every month, and more abundantly every third month.) ”

“ It flitted like a shadow from one trunk to the other so swiftly that De Catinat could not have told whether it were beast or human. And then again he saw it, and yet again, sometimes one shadow, sometimes two shadows, silent, furtive, like the _loup-garou_ with which his nurse had scared him in his childhood. Then for a few moments all was still once more, and then in an instant there crept out from among the bushes the most terrible-looking creature that ever walked the earth, an Iroquois chief upon the war-trail. ”

“ Catalina was a beautiful girl of sixteen and very good and industrious, but with many strange ways. She scarcely ever spoke a word and spent most of her time in looking out over the sea. Sometimes she would suddenly stand erect and, clasping her hands, would remain for a long time looking up at the sky as if she saw something that no one else could see. On account of these strange manners the people thought her a wonderful girl and she was supposed to have mysterious powers.
One day many ships came up from the island of Mindanao and hundreds of fierce Moros landed. ”

“ Whilst the marriage was in hand, Cato's son, taking some of his friends along with him, went and asked his father if it were for any offense he brought in a stepmother upon him? But Cato cried out, "Far from it, my son, I have no fault to find with you nor anything of yours; only I desire to have many children, and to leave the commonwealth more such citizens as you are." Pisistratus, the tyrant of Athens, made, they say, this answer to his sons, when they were grown men, when he married his second wife, Timonassa of Argos, by whom he had, it is said, Iophon and Thessalus. ”

“ Pointing at one who had sold the land which his father had left him, and which lay near the sea-side, he pretended to express his wonder at his being stronger even than the sea itself; for what it washed away with a great deal of labor, he with a great deal of ease drank away. When the senate, with a great deal of splendor, received king Eumenes on his visit to Rome, and the chief citizens strove who should be most about him, Cato appeared to regard him with suspicion and apprehension ”

“ Further, the blood-vessels of women stand out less than those of men, and women are rounder and smoother because the secretion which in men goes to these vessels is drained away with the catamenia. We must suppose, too, that the same cause accounts for the fact that the bulk of the body is smaller in females than in males among the vivipara, since this is the only class in which the catamenia are discharged from the body. And in this class the fact is clearest in women, for the discharge is greater in women than in the other animals. ”

“ The color of the katydid is plain green, with a conspicuous dark-brown triangle on the back covering the stridulating area of the wings. The tips of the mouth parts are vellowish. The eyes are of a pale transparent green, but each has a dark center which, like the pupil in a painting, is always fixed upon you from whatever angle you retreat. The movements of the captive individual are slow, though in the open he can run rather rapidly, and when he is in a hurry he often takes the rather absurd attitude shown at B of Figure 25, with the head down and the wings and body elevated. ”

“ I have dwelt at length upon this fault of Catharine in order to show to what a high degree of perfection grace had raised her.
Bonaventura who had succeeded in occupying her with her attire, had not inspired her with a wish to please the world, yet her fervor in prayer and meditation had abated. Our Lord would no longer permit that his chosen spouse should thus be separated from his heart, and he destroyed the obstacle that prevented this holy union. ”

“ It is plain, then, that the catamenia are a secretion, and that they are analogous in females to the semen in males. The circumstances connected with them are evidence that this view is correct. For the semen begins to appear in males and to be emitted at the same time of life that the catamenia begin to flow in females, and that they change their voice and their breasts begin to develop. So, too, in the decline of life the generative power fails in the one sex and the catamenia in the other. ”

“ There is another discharge, a white one, by the way, which occurs in girls even at a very early age, more especially if their diet be largely of a fluid nature; and this malady causes arrest of growth and loss of flesh. In the majority of cases the catamenia are noticed by the time the breasts have grown to the height of two fingers' breadth. In girls, too, about this time the voice changes to a deeper note; for while in general the woman's voice is higher than the man's, so also the voices of girls are pitched in a higher key than the elder women's, just as the boy's are higher than the men's ”

“ CATO THE STERN
A YOUNG fellow, seventeen years old, fought in the front ranks of the Roman army in the wars with Hannibal. His hair was red, his gray eyes flashed, his shout was a roar. Not a man in the host bore himself more boldly than young Cato.
After a battle he would retire to his tent; there he would help his slave prepare the supper of plain food. For drink he seldom had anything but water. If he was tired, he would have a dash of vinegar in the cup. Scarcely ever did he taste wine. ”

“ Cato, the censor, was much engrossed with this domestic medicine;053 he wrote a book in which he recommended cabbage as a sovereign remedy in many diseases. He venerated the number 3, as did the Pythagoreans; did not disdain to transmit to posterity certain medical words which it was believed should be repeated to assist in the reduction of dislocations and fractures. This old censor seemed to have a profound hatred for medical men, and most absurd ideas of their works and claims, although doubtless many Greek physicians who came to Rome merited the invectives which he launched against them. ”

“ Nor would he ever go into the bath with him; which seems indeed to have been the common custom of the Romans. Sons-in-law used to avoid bathing with fathers-in-law, disliking to see one another naked: but having, in time, learned of the Greeks to strip before men, they have since taught the Greeks to do it even with the women themselves.
Thus, like an excellent work, Cato formed and fashioned his son to virtue ”

“ We find the different species of Catasetum to thrive very well in the Cattleya house, if provided with fibrous peat and good drainage at the roots, and suspended from the roof of the structure in baskets. They must not receive too much water at any time, and when their growth is completed they should only have just sufficient to keep them in a plump condition, as they have thick fleshy bulbs to be maintained fresh and healthy during their resting season. ”

“ This we should expect, for the bodies of animals are colder when the environment happens to become so, and the time of change from one month to another is cold because of the absence of the moon, whence also it results that this time is stormier than the middle of the month. When then the residue of the nourishment has changed into blood, the catamenia tend to occur at the above-mentioned period, but when it is not concocted a little matter at a time is always coming away, and this is why ‘whites’ appear in females while still small, in fact mere children. ”

“ But Cato was so struck by the evidences of Carthaginian prosperity that he was convinced that the security of Rome depended on the annihilation of Carthage. From this time, in season and out of season, he kept repeating the cry: “Delenda est Carthago.”
To Cato the individual life was a continual discipline, and public life was the discipline of the many. He regarded the individual householder as the germ of the family, the family as the germ of the state. By strict economy of time he accomplished an immense amount of work ”

“ Such men seem to me to resemble fruits which grow out of season: for men gaze upon them with wonder, but do not eat them: and the stern antique virtue of Cato, displayed as it was in a corrupt and dissolute age, long after the season for it had gone by, gained him great glory and renown, but proved totally useless, as it was of too exalted a type to suit the political exigencies of the day. When Cato began his career, his country was not already ruined, as was that of Phokion. ”

“ Then Catharine, docile to the lessons of Wisdom, would fall on her knees, before her mother, soften her by words full of humility and sweetness, entreating her to calm herself, and promising to repose by her side in accordance with her wishes. She would then lie down on the extreme edge of the bed and there meditate with fervor; and when she found her mother was asleep, she would softly arise and return to her devout exercises. It would not be long; for Satan provoked by her constancy, would awaken Lapa. ”

“ Cato, finding that the patients lived notwithstanding this detestable conspiracy, began to regard the Greek practitioners as impious sorcerers, who counteracted the course of nature, and restored dying men to life, by means of unholy charms; and he therefore advised his countrymen to remain stedfast, not only by their ancient Roman principles and manners, but also by the venerable unguents and salubrious balsams which had come down to them from the wisdom of their grandmothers. Such as they were, Cato’s old medical saws continued long in repute at Rome. ”

“ But, just as the accomplishments of one member of a human family may give prestige to all his relations and descendants, so the talent of one noted member of the katydid family has given notoriety to all his congeners, and his justly deserved name has come to be applied by the undiscriminating public to a whole tribe of singers of lesser or very mediocre talent whose only claim to the name of katydid is that of family relationship. In Europe the katydids are called simply the longhorn grasshoppers. ”

“ Catiline was descended from one of the oldest families in Rome, and his loyalty to the cause of the aristocracy was proved by the ferocity with which he had served under Sulla and had assisted in carrying into execution his most bloodthirsty orders. Catiline did not fail to derive some profit from these terrible times, as he secured the proscription and murder of his brother and the grant to himself of his brother's forfeited estate. ”

“ Catanio meet them at the porch, and in the name of God dare them to enter the house of one of his servants!"
"Alas!" replied Catanio, "let me implore your majesty to pause. We are but three aged and infirm men, against seven soldiers, armed, insolent, and rapacious; as the followers of a usurper ever are."
"This is no time for delay. Away, Captain Dundas!" exclaimed York; "you must fly. Catanio will lead you to the beach ere the house is surrounded. Farewell, sir! a long farewell to you: we may never meet again!" ”

“ And the other Cato himself kept safe, till he came to Corcyra, but there he set up his tent in the market-place, and the sailors being very cold in the night, made a great many fires, some of which caught the tents, so that they were burnt, and the book lost. And though he had brought with him several of Ptolemy's stewards, who could testify to his integrity, and stop the mouths of enemies and false accusers, yet the loss annoyed him, and he was vexed with himself about the matter, as he had designed them not so much for a proof of his own fidelity, as for a pattern of exactness to others. ”

“ Cato was far too intelligent not to appreciate his high qualities of mind and character: but he thought him a new and therefore dangerous kind of man.
Fifty years after the battle of Zama the Carthaginians, who were not allowed by the treaty to make war without the permission of Rome, sent an appeal for protection against Masannasa, the King of Numidia, who had gradually been encroaching on their territory. A Commission was sent out from Rome to inquire, with Cato at its head. Cato came back possessed by one idea, which never afterwards left him. ‘Carthage must be destroyed. ”

“ Catiline's conspiracy is a story too well known to be insisted on. He was of a noble family, but by his extravagancies had reduced himself to great want, which engaged him in bad practices. The Roman armies were then pursuing conquests in remote provinces, which Catiline judged the most seasonable opportunity for undertaking some desperate design. ”

“ Those Cathayans are little fellows, speaking much through the nose, and, as is general with all those eastern people, their eyes are very narrow. They are first-rate artists in every kind, and their physicians have a thorough knowledge of the virtues of herbs, and an admirable skill in diagnosis by the pulse. ”